Notes on the Revolutionary Expansion in Digital Content Availability — This week the ITIF hosted a panel discussion on the evolution of digital content, with panelists from Google, the NMPA, DiMA, and MPAA. John McCoskey of the MPAA shares some post-panel thoughts here. “One thing that’s clear is that quality content has never been more influential to the growth of the Internet than it is today. If you want to attract visitors to your website, subscribers to your service, or eyeballs to your advertisements, your content needs to be compelling. That’s why players like Amazon and Netflix have begun producing their own original programming, and that is just as true for Hollywood studios who continue to be on the cutting-edge of the digital content revolution.”

Why Buy the Cow? — Writer Alex Epstein reflects on last Sunday’s article by Tim Krieder in the NY Times, Slaves of the Internet, Unite! He offers the observation that the internet has decimated the middle-class of creative professionals. “But it does feel like what used to be a pyramid has shrunk its middle, so its base is impossibly wide, and the top quite pointy. The middle seems to be disappearing. There’s room for star journalists, and free Huffington post contributors, but no room for journeymen…Before recorded music, if you were semi-good, you could become a traveling musician. You could make a living, of a sorts, playing to crowds of 40. Or, at least, you could eat. That living hasn’t existed for a long time. Instead you play to crowds of 40 to get exposure (and learn your chops) so you can play to crowds of 10,000 for money.”

Is this really what Congress had in mind when it created the DMCA? — Ellen Seidler presents evidence that suggests the answer to that question should be “no.” “Not only does sending out DMCA notices required a great deal of time–time that most indie content creators do not have–but often times it’s ignored entirely by pirate sites that feign compliance.”

Woody Allen Pens Rare Open Letter to Hollywood (Guest Column) — A lot of people in the creative industries work behind the scenes. They are just as creative and essential to the success of a work, but too often don’t get recognized for their contributions. In this open letter, filmmaker Woody Allen calls attention to the contributions of casting directors to the success of films. “In my case certainly, the casting director plays a vital part in the making of the movie. My history shows that my films are full of wonderful performances by actors and actresses I had never heard of and were not only introduced to me by my casting director, Juliet Taylor, but, in any number of cases, pushed on me against my own resistance.”

4 Comments

Investing might not look entirely rational, but it is. Tech is high risk, high reward. It’s most possible that any given tech startup will fail, but it is also possible that $100 million investment will turn into a $500 billion dollar company. So if lets say you invest $100 mill for 20% of that startup, you can fail 900 times, but if you succeed once, you still get a good ROI. This is why overall, venture capitalists are doing pretty well for themselves. They just need one or two companies of the hundreds they invest in to really “make it big”. That’s all..

Tech is also one of the few places where entirely new megacorps are being made – GE and Coca-Cola were startups once too. You can invest in Coca-Cola or GE now, but the amount of equity you get for money is super tiny. There are few places to invest to get something like that you can get with tech startups.

In response to “Is this really what Congress had in mind when it created the DMCA?”

Google/YouTube committed 18 USC § 1621 in the Viacom case, and still argue the position by committing this crime to more judges and courts who have yet to find this (but it’s likely now that they have just been caught). In Google/YouTube’s 3/11/2010 Memorandum of Law signed by attorney Andrew H. Shapiro (in Viacom I SDNY), Page 93, Line 9-12 claim that there are “no[] downloads” so that Google/YouTube remain immune to the Grokster III case. But this is a LIE. The evidence, Google/YouTube’s Terms of Service, and plenty of applications that Google funds (like Mozilla add-ons) show the affirmation and the enabling by Google/YouTube for downloading of every file on their system (and tens of thousands of others). Why is this important? Because that Viacom case drags for 7 years and a socialism has been imposed by this lie and the abuse of technology for copies of material objects to continue with appended ads instantaneously—-all preceded by a financial facilitation by the credit card companies, AMEX, Visa, and Mastercard (and others).

With that written above, let’s now look at what Congress had in mind in 1998, the technology of that era, and the fact that 17 USC § 106 is an exclusive right to create, distribute, AND authorize a work. The issue then was to use the Internet to ADVERTISE the selling of physical objects from the content represented, not a copy of the material object as an upload and download copy of that copy.

A telephone company and a true ISP are not a broadcaster (i.e.: CBS, NBC, ABC, etc., as in over-the-air), cable television system (i.e. TBS, TNT, The Movie Channel, HBO, etc.), or a satellite television service (DirectTV, EchoStar, etc.). Therefore, the transmission or receivership of Internet Protocol packets without modification through dialup, DSL, cable modem, wireless or dedicated high-speed interconnections that is the specific inclusive requirement to be eligible inside 17 U.S.C. § 512(k)(1)(B), remains because H.R. Rep. 105-551(II) at page 64 further declares that “[t]his definition includes, for example, services such as ***providing Internet access***, e-mail, chat room and web page hosting services.” 7 Id.
(emphasis added with stars).

What Google and Pirates do is create subdirectories of their URLs for all to assume that the instantaneous anonymous user is protected by 1st Amendment Freedoms to destroy lives by enabling scienter, and to profit from it for as long as possible, at any moment in time, and for as long as it concurs until the owner of the work finds out about it.

Without the computer science knowledge, that Google has and is abusing to steal from everyone, they are creating a socialism and election fraud, where if one disagrees, political dissidents are created through the abuse of enabled scienter. Well, this is not a 1st Amendment Freedom, and sadly, Google/YouTube do not qualify for any protection, let alone willfully blind itself as a business model who’s product is to copy material objects as a search apparatus (and then create more products for free like Android from the theft).

Google/YouTube are specific unlike other Internet companies, because they committed 18 USC § 1621 in US Federal Court with the district judge, Louis Stanton, refusing to see the clear evidence and rule according to the correct thinking of mankind.

The US constitution establishes what authorities the federal government has. Education is NOT one of them. This is just ONE example of the federal government operating multi-billion dollar programs that they have no authorization to do so under the HIGHEST law of the land, the US Constitution. Nobody can explain what authorities the Department of Education is actually running under. The Ed Dept might be great, but we still need to follow the Constitution otherwise the document becomes meaninglessness, and by extension if you don’t follow the most important laws, it’s not a big stench to not follow any law.

The idea that it is constitutional is completely nonsensical, yet the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled it unconstitutional. This total disregard for WHAT THE CONSTITUTION PLAINLY SAYS has been going on since Roosevelt effectively corrupted the US Supreme Court when they wouldn’t go along with his unconstitutional ideas for running the federal government. We have not had a legitimate justice system for over 70 years in this country. Period.

I ask you, why is it so surprising to you that a law can say one thing, and a judge can say another is so surprising to you? It’s how the US government works, Terrence or Delvin can write any arguments they want – it doesn’t matter because the law fundamentally doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the agenda of whoever is paying off the right people. It’s a far bigger problem then just the DMCA, it’s the entire legal system that is this way.

“I ask you, why is it so surprising to you that a law can say one thing, and a judge can say another is so surprising to you?”

There is nothing wrong with the legal system, the checks and balances are there IF chosen to be enacted. To answer your question, it is the Plaintiff, that too, didn’t not argue the non-truth submitted by Google/YouTube in Viacom I, II, and III; hence, the judge would then have to answer for the Plaintiff’s argument presented. Let’s assume that the Plaintiff, Viacom, were told 100,000+ times about the lie submitted by Google/YouTuve through the use of original material objects, and then came back with “we don’t discuss on-going litigation”, and “we’re all set with this”. And then lose the case, with great paydays for the law firms.

Except one other has to get paid for [his] work now. They got caught.

Thanks.

About

Copyhype provides news and info on current developments relating to copyright law, the media industries, and the digital economy. It cuts through the hype to bring reasoned discussion aimed at both legal and nonlegal audiences.

Terry Hart is currently VP Legal Policy and Copyright Counsel at the Copyright Alliance. Any opinions expressed on this site remain his own and not necessarily those of his present or any past employers.